


Gently Coping

by Kaekokat14



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, I have been writing this fic off and on for months, Medical treatment for coping methods, No Beta, RMD, Ratchet takes his job seriously, Trailbreaker is a sweetheart, Use of real conditions, mentions of special needs and coping methods, mentions of trauma, weighted blankets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 18:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20800739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaekokat14/pseuds/Kaekokat14
Summary: Trailbreaker has as an unusual coping method in dealing with the trauma of war thanks to the misfortune of a repeated injury to his PLAT.





	Gently Coping

Trailbreaker cussed out a shout of pain as a bolt of hot pain seared across his back. Not again. Why always in the back. He tipped forward into the dirt hearing the cry of Hound. “Medic!” And the pain took him under....

There is something to be said for Power Linkup Aperture Toggles or as we in the business call them. PLATs They worked efficiently for what they were designed for.

They moved the charge around the proper diodes for powering 'special' applications to a mech's frame i.e holograms, electro-disputers, combination (Gestalt) and force fields- that being said, they were not designed for war.

In which case they became an unnecessary processor-ache for Ratchet, a constant burr in Wheeljack's side, and a literal pain in the lateral spinal struts for Trailbreaker; when they got shot up.

Hound, Mirage, Windcharger, The ProtectoBots, and the like, had less of a problem with their PLATs than Trailbreaker. The difference?

Location, location, location.

While the PLATs had not been designed for war, the locations in a bot's body was the key to how much that actually mattered.

Trailbreaker simply had the misfortune of having his PLAT located in his upper back, an overly large target for cons-- if the number of times he had been shot in the back was any indication. This was only one of the problems with the location and nature of Trailbreaker's PLAT.

The one misfortune with getting shot in the back high enough to disable the PLAT was, Trailbreaker's charge from his force field was so ingrained in just about every part of his frame that a short out from the PLAT could be potentially deadly for Trailbreaker. The charge needed to keep moving around his frame--least it build up in one place and blow him literally to pieces.

One of few the major down sides to his spark gift...

Trailbreaker woke to the subtle shifting and rocking of his sore frame and a visor full of worn medical berth padding. A big warm palm on his back. He knew instantly what had happened—having been in this position before..many many times before..

He groaned. His vocalizer cold with disuse. The sound came out more like a strangle hum.

"You online 'Breaker?”

Inferno. Not the usual choice.

He groaned again. “Kinda.” He mumbled into the padding of the well worn but comfortable berth. “Where's Windcharger?”

“Out of commission at the moment. Got pulled to help with you, since Red is out right now too.” Inferno sounded closer to him now. “You don't mind do you?”

Trailbreaker hummed. “No.. don't mind.” He buried his face plate into the berth and hummed. The palm on his back pushing him back and forth in a rocking motion.

Modern medicine could fix just about everything in dealing with a blown PLAT, but throw in a 4 million civil war into the mix and Trailbreaker's PLAT became a special case-- a special case that required... special methods of treatment. With the unique energy his force field created stuck in his wiring and nothing to tell it where to go, he became a ticking time bomb.

The first time it happened, Trailbreaker counted his lucky stars it was in Ratchet's care he had been delivered. The medic having nothing more than an a thick insulation sheet, some cord, rubble, and a mangled magnet field generator. Had crafted a 'cradle' to lay Trailbreaker in, slapped the magnet component on his back with a metal mesh bandaged and sent the 'cradle' into a rocking motion. And the charge had started moving again. He was completely stable by the time they moved him. Stable and in a blissful recharge.

Having discovered this method of dealing with Trailbreaker's particular problem, Ratchet had nabbed Windcharger into helping treat Trailbreaker after such a hit until a new PLAT could be-- as Ratchet called it R&R'ed: Removed and Rebuilt.

Which cut out the need for the cradle. Trailbreaker privately mourned for the loss.

Windcharger's gift was the mirror side to Trailbreaker's own. Mostly. Trailbreaker produced an electro-current with his gift, and Windcharger produced an magnetic-current. Which was why Prowl always had them placed on opposite ends of the field in a fight, if even in the same battle. If they activated their gifts within reach of each other, they would put out a powerful enough electromagnetic pulse that would put everyone within range into a forced wipe of their drives.

Including themselves. At least according to Wheeljack.

Yeah, No thank you.

However, Windcharger's gift could move Trailbreaker's current throughout his body. Acting as a PLAT for his frame till Ratchet fixed him up. Without it, he had maybe a couple of megacycles before he would blow himself to pieces.

Windcharger was out of commission at the moment, and Ratchet likely hadn't the time to construct a cradle, so a Mech worked just as well.

He hummed again and offlined his visor again, slowly slipping back into recharge. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he had missed this particular part of Ratchet's unorthodox method of treating him. But he suspected that Ratchet knew anyway. Trailbreaker had developed RMD ( **Rhythmic** **Movement Disorder** ) over the vorns both from trauma and the comfort the cradle had offered. It had gotten to the point Ratchet had to put up bumper bars on the sides of Trailbreaker's medical berth so he wouldn't roll off of it, or he just anchored him securely so he wouldn't hurt himself post surgery healing wounds when he rocked. When he did that, Ratchet made sure to leave either a leg or his helm free for him to bounce or rock.

So he tried to train himself out of doing it so much, but it had manifested in other ways in his life. Bouncing his leg when sitting in meetings, rocking back and forth in his chair, (especially when strapped in Skyfire.) rubbing his chest or helm in repeated circles as he was drifting off into recharge, or the occasional slamming of his helm up and down repeatedly into his berth. Ratchet hadn't liked that one. It resulted in Trailbreaker getting a specialized pillow from Wheeljack to help pad his helm from damage when he 'banged' as Hound called it.

Ratchet assured him it was a perfectly normal thing, and yeah some bots developed it. Some developed it all the way from sparkling-hood.

Humans apparently developed it too. Especially the young ones. Some grew out of it, some never did. Ratchet had had long conversations with human doctors about that when he had discovered humans could develop RMD as well. Though Ratchet and several human doctors deduced the reason was multiple. Some stemmed from abuse, some special needs, others from illness. They wanted to observe Trailbreaker some time in his recharge to study the differences in his need/habit from humans. But Trailbreaker didn't know when such a study would happen, and wasn't sure he was very comfortable with people watching him recharge. But Ratchet had assured him he would be there the whole time to supervise and he was under no obligation to comply with their request.

“Has he gone back into recharge?” Trailbreaker heard the soft voice of Ratchet that brought him out of his foggy doze and thoughts.

Trailbreaker could feel Inferno shrug though his palm on his back.“I think so. He's been pretty quiet. Woke up for about a minute and asked about Windcharger, didn't say anything else.”

He let out a blurb of sound to alert them he was online. “Then again, maybe not.” The palm rubbed his back before going back to work in the rocking motion.

“Trailbreaker.” Ratchet called for his attention. He released another sound to let the medic know he was paying attention. “Your PLAT is ready to be reinstalled, you know the drill. I'm going to sedate you for the re-installation.” He hummed again an affirmation and he felt a small rush of cold through his lines and the fog got heavier in his helm and he shuttered his visor and drifted off into recharge as Ratchet wiped down his back with a sterilizer.

\--------------------------

He online later on still in the same medical berth, but Inferno was gone. A weighted insulation sheet was draped over his back. That was a new one. It was warm and bore a pleasant weight on his frame. He couldn't help the soft purr his engine settled into, the same subtle sound he made when Inferno was tending to him.

“Good morning, trailbreaker.” Ratchet.

Morning? He checked his chronometer. It was nearly 9 A.M local pacific time. He had recharged that long? Ratchet had started to surgery around 3 P.M the previous day.

“Like it?” A servo rested on his back over the heavy sheet draped over him. “A human invention. Its called a weighted blanket. It is suppose to help humans with sensory sensitivities sleep. By how long you've recharged, I would say it works.” He hummed in assessment.

Worked? Slag yeah it worked. It felt wonderful. “Cozy.” He mumbled. His approval and comfort thick in his EM field.

Ratchet chuckled. “I think I will have Wheeljack whip up a couple more. I believe they would do wonders for Red Alert and Bluestreak.” The servo patted his back. “You're free to go, as always, you are off duty for the first day, light duty the next two, and you can go back to a full duty shift on day four.”

Right. He didn't want to move though. He was comfortable and warm. “Thanks Doc Bot... Is it alright if I stay a little longer?” He didn't want to push his luck with Ratchet, but he felt too good to not risk it, he didn't want to give up the blanket. The twins would think he was still broken for asking to _stay_ in the med-bay for a little longer, blanket or no blanket.

“I don't see why not, two conditions. One. You drink the energon cubes I brought you in the next mega-cycle.” He tapped the tray table next to Trailbreaker's berth to emphasis his order. “Two. if bots come in I'll be needing that berth for repairs, you vamoose. Capiche?”

“Yeah, okay.” He sighed and burrowed under the blanket a bit more.

“By the way, Trailbreaker?” Ratchet's voice was a bit softer, having moved away.

“Hmm?” He hummed back.

“You can keep the blanket.”

He could??? “Really?...... Ratchet? Thank you.” He put as much sincerity into his glyphs as he could.

He got a grunt in return. He smiled under his tent of blanket, slipped a ped out from under his covers, and tapped it softly against the berth padding and settled in to enjoy the peace and comfortable quiet a little bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have RMD and special needs, but they aren't exclusive to each other. My RMD is a self comfort method I developed when I was a baby. As most babies tend to learn a way to self soothe, when a parent isn't available. All my siblings developed this particular self soothing method, and all of them have grown out of it. Except me and my little brother. We are both in our 20s. The guess as to why I still self soothe this way was because I wasn't held as much as I needed to be as a baby. Everyone is different when it comes to RMD. My brother likens it to his special needs. He just needs to move, in his sleep or otherwise. I still rock and 'bang' in my sleep, but it has lessen with the use of a weighted blanket. 
> 
> I chose Trailbreaker for this particular disorder due to his need to self soothe so constantly in the IDW Lost Light comics. Swerve was my second choice if Trailbreaker didn't cooperate, followed by Rodimus and possibly Megatron. 
> 
> If you have RMD. There is nothing wrong with you. Its different yes, but there is nothing wrong with you. I would recommend a weighted blanket if you struggle with your RMD. It really helped me, I would hope it would do the same for you.


End file.
